Participants: Lincoln Steed (Host), Paul Anderson
Series Code: LI
Program Code: LI000309B
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00:06 Welcome back to The Liberty Insider.
00:08 Before the break with guest Commander Paul Anderson, 00:12 we were deconstructing and giving some history 00:15 of the Military Chaplaincy Program. 00:17 And you said something very important 00:19 just before the break. 00:20 It's worth remembering 00:22 that the chaplains are non-combatants. 00:23 Yes. 00:24 While they are embedded that, you know, 00:26 you're not part of the killing machine 00:29 that the military is meant to be, people forget that. 00:32 That is true. 00:34 The purpose of the military by and large is 00:36 to effect diplomacy when diplomacy fails. 00:41 But the chaplain's role is not to be a war fighter 00:45 or a war planner, 00:46 but to be of a spiritual, moral and ethical support 00:51 to the commanders and to the troops 00:54 who actually serve in combat. 00:57 I think it's a very responsible position 00:59 because, you know, if it's a wartime 01:01 you're gonna be right there where soldiers are dying 01:04 or in great agony and... 01:07 That's the side of war that most people I think 01:10 with the sanitized stuff we're getting now, 01:11 they forget about that. 01:13 It's blood and guts and tragedy and, 01:16 and death and maiming and so on, 01:18 and you're right in the middle of that. 01:19 One of the most prolific pictures 01:21 that I have a copy of it in my office 01:23 is in the movie Saving Private Ryan. 01:25 In that Omaha Beach scene that long... 01:31 There were a lot of chaplains killed on that invasion 01:34 or as I remember reading about it. 01:35 There were. 01:37 But there's one scene 01:38 and most people probably missed it, 01:39 where there's a chaplain 01:41 who is actually lying on a soldier, 01:45 they're under fire, 01:46 the soldier has been hit and he's dying 01:48 and this chaplain is there 01:51 performing last rites for this dying soldier. 01:54 And there's a moment when he looks up 01:56 and you see the cross on his helmet 01:58 and they leave it there for just a bit 02:00 and then move on to the rest of the battle. 02:02 But for all of us who have served as chaplains, 02:07 some in harm's way, some thankfully not, 02:10 that's an icon, an iconic image for us. 02:13 So I had seen that. 02:15 I mean I didn't see the movie, but I've seen probably clips 02:19 from where the helmet was like that. 02:21 Now there's other ways 02:23 that a soldier could tell you're a chaplain, 02:24 it's not just the helmet, is it? 02:26 No, it's not the helmet. 02:27 There might be other epaulets, 02:29 but the key way that the soldiers know 02:32 who the chaplain is, is because the chaplain gets around. 02:36 We call it in the navy deck plating. 02:39 Gets around and knows his crew 02:42 from the youngest sailor to the captain of the ship, 02:45 from a private if it's Marine Corps or army, 02:49 all the way to the colonel or generals. 02:51 Yeah. 02:52 Because it's not as visually obvious 02:55 because I'm sure on news reports 02:58 we often see a picture including a chaplain. 03:00 But if you don't know the cues, you wouldn't see it. 03:02 But recently I saw with the fighting again in Ukraine. 03:06 A picture actually in the newspaper 03:08 and there were a couple of the, the Russian. 03:14 I'm trying to think how to describe them. 03:16 Separatists, the Russian separatists 03:19 and they were standing next to a metropolitan 03:21 of the Eastern Orthodox Church 03:23 and I instantly, here the church 03:25 and say what they're doing. 03:27 And that's how it is in some other countries, 03:29 in other times. 03:30 There's the clerics in full garb and say, 03:32 you know what's going on. 03:34 But the chaplaincy is the U.S. 03:36 runs it as a more low key thing, isn't it? 03:40 It is. 03:41 We are not the directors of any of the operations, 03:47 but we are the people 03:50 who provide the spiritual underpinning 03:53 and foundation while they are serving the country. 03:57 Okay. So how did you get into military chaplaincy? 04:01 Well, now that's an interesting biography. 04:04 We can take another program if you like. 04:08 I was a student at Oakwood College 04:10 and finished high school and gone to college... 04:11 You stayed in Huntsville, Alabama. 04:13 Down in Huntsville, Alabama, now Oakwood University. 04:16 And I was doing well, dean's list 04:20 but I stumbled into a vocational crisis 04:24 and existential crisis at the same time. 04:26 That's interesting. 04:28 I had one of those at about the same time. 04:29 Really? Now I think it's necessary. 04:32 If you don't, you don't become defined. 04:36 And there might be some warping later on, 04:39 but for me I did the unthinkable thing 04:42 and followed prayerfully, followed my wanderlust. 04:45 Left Oakwood and joined the navy. 04:48 It was an interesting experience 04:50 but it was there that I sensed the call to ministry 04:54 and having seen and been mentored 04:57 by several navy chaplains, 04:59 I thought I want to be a navy chaplain. 05:01 But I got out of the navy after six years 05:05 and went to Colombia Union College 05:07 and then to Andrews, 05:08 came back to Allegheny East Conference and pastored 05:11 but my dream was still to be a navy chaplain. 05:14 Then to Bethany Conference... 05:16 So you had been in the military before, that's interesting. 05:17 I had. Yeah. 05:18 I joined when I was 19 and was there until I was 25, 05:22 married while I was in. 05:23 Both my children were born. 05:25 Well, my first child was born while I was on active duty. 05:28 The second just as I started pastoring. 05:32 But after 14 years the dream of becoming a navy chaplain 05:35 became a reality and in 1995 I was commissioned 05:40 as a lieutenant in the Navy Chaplain Corps. 05:42 Well, and then you just, just recently come out, so... 05:45 Just recently. 05:47 Of 20 years. 05:48 A total of 25 years active service and... 05:52 Yeah, with the first, yeah. 05:54 Wouldn't trade it. 05:57 I got to live my dream and now God has allowed me 06:00 to live beyond my dream. 06:02 And I'll even throw in a bit of my dream 06:04 hopefully in the navy. 06:06 You must have gone to Australia. 06:07 I did. I got to... 06:09 I'm an Australian. Hope it's secret, I'm sure. 06:12 Every time I open my mouth. 06:14 I visited Perth, Australia twice. 06:15 That's right. You did mention that to be probably... 06:18 It was a great, great experience. 06:21 Yeah. 06:22 Surprise you didn't go to Sydney though 06:24 because a lot of the warships come into Sydney too, 06:27 but Perth is a traditional stopping out... 06:29 Yeah, Perth, Fremantle. 06:30 We wanted... 06:32 I thought why can't we go to Sydney, it's the big city? 06:34 But we were coming off of a long deployment 06:37 and I guess that side... 06:39 And there were probably some economic 06:41 and political impetii for that as well. 06:43 Yeah. 06:44 So during your period as a military navy chaplain, 06:49 you know, what sticks in your mind? 06:50 Where there sort of some hard moments 06:52 when you thought this is what I'm here for? 06:54 Oh, many of them. 06:58 My first assignment was with the U.S. Marine Corps, 07:02 third marine division in Okinawa, Japan. 07:05 And there were a lot's of experiences 07:08 where I just knew that God sent me there 07:11 for such a time as this. 07:13 Came back to the U.S. 07:15 I wanted to go to Italy, but we were... 07:18 I was pastoring in the Washington D.C. area 07:22 when I was commissioned into the chaplain corps. 07:24 When they sent me to Okinawa, we sold the car, 07:27 we sold the house, 07:29 three years later they sent me back to D.C... 07:31 I thought that was interesting, 07:33 but it afforded me some incredible opportunities 07:37 and exposure to see things 07:39 that I might not normally have done. 07:42 I was the navy chaplain 07:44 at Arlington Cemetery for two years, 07:46 buried over 900 people in Arlington Cemetery. 07:51 I was the navy chaplain there on 9/11. 07:57 I did most the planning for the sailors 08:02 who were killed aboard the U.S.S. Cole 08:04 who were buried at Arlington and the same... 08:07 Was that before 9/11? 08:09 That was before. Yes, I thought it was, yeah. 08:11 And so those were pivotal experiences. 08:15 There's was quite a few, was it 30 08:17 or something sailors that were... 08:19 I don't remember the number. 08:21 All of them weren't buried at Arlington, but... 08:23 The visual scene that I've taken away 08:25 apart from the human tragedy was, 08:28 I think it was a German operation, 08:30 actually re-floated or dry docked the boat 08:34 and then carried it at sea, dried docked. 08:37 And brought it back to the United States. 08:38 That's a lot of interesting technology 08:40 of full destroyer, wasn't it? 08:42 It was. 08:43 Lifted out of the water and carried in a cradle 08:45 above water back to be repaired. 08:48 That was an interesting experience 08:50 getting to talk to some of the sailors 08:52 who were aboard. 08:54 Had that happened 15 minutes later, 08:56 it would have been even worse 08:58 because it was the time that they were, 09:01 would have been lining up to go to lunch. 09:04 Yeah. Yeah. 09:05 Now these were big wake up calls 09:07 and as the media is telling us all the time. 09:10 This war on terrorism, it's violent, 09:13 it's war in the old form true, 09:17 but as well as that it has the strong religious component, 09:22 the antagonist after a radical form of another religion 09:26 and it invokes us or it places us 09:30 sort of as a Christian nation which we are not structurally, 09:32 but, you know, it brings out 09:34 this religious identity to a conflict 09:36 which is in my view sort of hacking back 09:39 to the bad old days of warfare when it was, 09:42 you know, our God versus your God type of thing. 09:45 And so this must make it much more difficult 09:47 for chaplains now a days. 09:49 And in the old days, you know, 09:52 a lot of the battles were fought on, 09:55 what essentially was the size of a football field 09:58 or a little large, 09:59 but now you have global conflict. 10:02 Yeah. It's not really confined anywhere. 10:04 No. And the technology you know bombs the turn corners 10:08 and things like that. 10:11 The carnage of warfare 10:12 is probably greater now than before 10:16 and the impact upon society certainly is devastating. 10:21 We don't have very much like times, 10:22 but I just like you to make a comment. 10:25 You probably haven't seen this coming, 10:27 a chaplain's ministering to the serviceman, 10:30 but this global war you're talking about 10:32 has shifted the carnage to primarily civilians. 10:35 How do you think military chaplains do 10:38 or need to relate to this because it isn't the killing, 10:41 it's mostly collateral, to use that term. 10:47 That's a good question. 10:48 The military chaplain probably wouldn't be involved 10:51 very heavily in instances of domestic carnage. 10:57 We'd be there to support based on our own experiences 11:01 and our training in supporting other first responders. 11:07 But the military chaplains due to Posse Commentates 11:10 and some other restrictions wouldn't be functioning 11:13 on the front of a domestic terrorist situation. 11:19 It used to be said that 11:21 there are no atheists in foxholes. 11:24 Not only are the foxholes largely gone, 11:27 but I think that dynamic with it. 11:29 It probably vanished some where around the time 11:31 of the smell of napalm in the morning. 11:36 But what is certain is that in the environment of war 11:39 which now a days carries with it 11:41 the context of crucifixions, beheadings, 11:44 and the myriad atrocities 11:47 that only a satanic cult could dream up. 11:50 There is a great need for Christian witness. 11:53 I think it is a fact that the chaplaincy service 11:59 of which the Seventh-day Adventist Church 12:01 is a part through its Adventist chaplains 12:05 is doing a great service. 12:07 We need to witness to young men and women 12:10 who have been brutalized by war. 12:12 And perhaps will only sense the presence of God 12:16 through the ministrations of such a representative. 12:20 No, not napalm in the morning, Christ in the morning 12:24 and Christ certainly can function as the morning star 12:28 and the harbinger of a new day, 12:30 a new day of peace and conflict forever over. 12:35 For Liberty Insider this is Lincoln Steed. |
Revised 2016-01-11